KPFK is a listener-sponsored radio station – meaning you the listener, rather than corporate advertising, keeps this station financially solvent. So instead of being accountable to our advertisers, we report to you. And in that spirit, today I’d like to introduce KPFK’s new General Manager, Sean Heitkemper. At only 36 years of age, Sean has more than 13 years of experience managing public radio stations. He is a native of Southern California, majored in political science at Cal State Long Beach, and worked at KKJZ, formerly KLON, in Long Beach. Sean was hired to run KPFK by Pacifica Executive Director Nicole Sawaya, who picked him from a set of finalists chosen by the Local Station Board. Today is his third day at work.

I listened with interest to the Jonathan Kay interview this morning. I am very familiar with the 9/11 Truth Movement, I have myself published work in academic venue about conspiracy theorizing and related topic. I am also familiar with this program, which has hosted so many very cutting and thoughtful programs and interviews.

I urge the program host to inform herself on the scientific basis of the 9/11 Truth Movement. I was disappointed to find that Mr. Kay in fact perpetrates the very thinking that he attributes to so called Truthers: he lumps scores of conjecture together and summarily indicts them on the weakest of their premises. I was more disappointed that the program host herself was not sufficiently informed to raise the essential questions about 9/11.

When laws of reality are so blithely held in contempt as they were with the imputed “facts” for how the WTC buildings fell we have indeed entered a very Brave New World. No so called de-bunker will take on the well over 1,000 scientists who have joined the Truth Movement demanding new investigation. Findings of fact regarding forensic evidence do not constitute conspiracy theorizing. Such fact finding is the cornerstone of democratic jurisprudence. Mr. Kay in fact treads a very well-worn path of gainsayers and gadflies. Mr. Vincent Bugliosi, referenced by the program host in closing, is far more artful and serious with his inquiry and trained in forensic inquiry and logic than the usual skeptic. The program host’s selective quotation of him is for that matter quizzical if not troubling.

Ray guns from space and similar speculations lack any basis in empirical reality. Newton’s laws of thermodynamics, however, define our reality. These laws are held in abeyance by the so called “official” story of 9/11, which is itself, in fact, a conspiracy theory based on demonstrably flimsy evidence; a Hollywood narrative that does not pass a whiff test other than how a lie told often enough might as well be true.

Newton’s Laws were in fact once heresy. This might be worth considering further as we contemplate how heresy becomes unquestioned truth.

As for gullible publics: clever condescension by talking heads has a peculiarly self-sealing and self-serving effect. The more that the little people feel talked down to and their reasonable fears (if not well founded doubts) dismissed, the more they will be vulnerable to snake oil come-ons, as with wildly unsubstantiated conspiracy claims (ray guns and terrorists with box cutters).

In this vortex of babble, talk shows will attract more listeners. Clever entrepreneurs will publish tracts that prop up glib and shallow certainty, and the world will spiral further into the very bramble that Mr. Kay attributes to scores of scientists and board certified engineers, as if they have nothing better to do than make up reality.

There are scores of genuine, courageous, intellectually honest scholars and scientists with rock solid reason to be dubious of the official account of 9/11; an account which itself has been a shifting target to anyone paying it more than gadfly attention. I urge the program host to consider interviewing these people.

As for conspiracy theorizing as a topic itself, particularly as this pertains to the American historical context, Lance deHaven-Smith of Florida Statue University at Tallahassee is a leading political theorist. I urge this program to contact him for interview.

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